Patient monitors are widely used in healthcare, e.g. in ICUs or generally in hospitals, to monitor and visualize patient-related data, in particular clinical data such as vital signs, scores and other information related to the patient's condition. For instance, the well-known Philips IntelliVue patient monitors provide a clear view of patient information and use highly configurable screens and clinical decision support tools that reflect clinical thought processes. IntelliVue monitors collect, combine, and cross-reference physiologic data to provide a coherent picture of patient status. There are different versions of these IntelliVue monitors including portable devices, stationary standalone devices (such as bedside monitors) or PC or workstation solutions running on a conventional computer.
The large amount of available patient-related data for a single patient provides many benefits, but poses also challenge, in particular for clinicians and physicians (or, generally, any caregivers or users) trying to make sense of the patient's condition and understand the patient's medical history. Visualization and visual analytics can help to analyze, filter and illustrate this large amount of patient-related data, particularly with diagnosis and decision support for caregivers. However, visualizations should be carefully designed to be helpful and achieve such goals.
Document EP 2 730 217 A1 discloses a biological information displaying apparatus that includes a displaying section on which a measurement display screen displaying biological information under measurement, an abnormality display screen displaying information alarming an abnormality of the biological information, and the biological information at a timing when the abnormality occurs, are displayed. The biological information displaying apparatus further includes a display controlling section which is configured to display the abnormality display screen on the measurement display screen, so that the abnormality display screen is superimposed on the measurement display screen. In case where the abnormality display screen is displayed on the displaying section, the display controlling section controls the displaying section so that, even when the abnormality resolves, the information alarming the abnormality of the biological information and the biological information at the timing when the abnormality occurs are continued to be displayed on the abnormality display screen.